Who wants to migrate to the metaverse? Big Five traits as predictors of virtual and real-world migration intentions.

Virtual migration is increasingly recognized as a new research direction for mobility studies, supplementing embodied and spatial mobility. metaverse technology could accelerate such migrations in the future, as it intends to offer a viable alternative to the real world regarding work and entertainment opportunities. Drawing from research on the relationship between personality and real-world migration intentions, we aimed to compare whether the Big Five personality traits similarly (or differently) predict willingness to move to the metaverse and to geographical places. We conducted two representative studies (Ntotal =2306) in Poland. We found that extraversion positively and agreeableness and conscientiousness negatively predict virtual and real-world migration willingness. Furthermore, openness is positively associated with real-world migration intentions and negatively associated with willingness to migrate to the metaverse. In turn, the effect of neuroticism on virtual migration intentions was positive but less stable across the studies.